In personal injury cases that involve extremely bad misconduct, punitive damages may be available. When compared to other states, though, Missouri law drastically limits when they can be awarded and how much can be received. What are Punitive Damages? Punitive damages, also known as exemplary damages, are a type of financial compensation that can be awarded in a personal injury case . They go ...
Negligence per se is a way of proving fault in a personal injury claim . If someone was violating a law when they hurt you, like if they were breaking a traffic law and caused a car accident , that violation can be used to prove that they were being negligent. This can establish liability and make them pay for your losses. Unlawful Conduct Amounts to Per Se Negligence Every state has a long list ...
If you are driving a car and get hit in a car accident , you will suffer property damage to your vehicle. You can suffer property damage even if you were a pedestrian or bicyclist, though to a much lesser extent. When this happens, you deserve compensation for all of your losses , including for your property damage. Property Damage Can Be Staggeringly High Even if a car crash did not cause any ...
In our last blog post about car accidents , which covered holding defendants personally liable for a crash , we mentioned the “tort lottery.” This is a very difficult situation for victims to find themselves in, as their recovery depends on the affluence of the person who hurt them. Unfortunately, it can happen in a wide variety of ways in Missouri. The Tort Lottery The word “tort” is the ...
The personal injury attorneys at the Smith Law Office are fighting for a grieving Kansas City father in a civil lawsuit against his son’s killers. Bar Fight Leads to Shooting Death On August 20, 2017, Thomas Orr, III was at the Californos Bar in Kansas City’s Westport Entertainment District, which had a reputation for violence. While Mr. Orr was there, a fight broke out in the bar. Despite the ...
The personal injury attorneys at the Smith Law Office are seeking justice in the wrongful death case of Thomas Orr III. As we detailed earlier in our blog, Mr. Orr III – an off-duty police officer – was an innocent bystander when he was fatally shot during a bar fight in Kansas City. The Smith Law Office is representing Mr. Orr III’s father, Thomas Orr, Jr., in a wrongful death case that also ...
The Smith Law Office is behind one of the new cases being heard at the Circuit Court in Jackson County, Missouri. The case, a personal injury lawsuit for the wrongful death of a bar patron last August in Kansas City, involves a tricky aspect of the law that few people think of: If someone dies, how can they file a lawsuit? The Death of Thomas Orr The case centers on a bar fight that happened in ...
In personal injury cases that involve extremely bad misconduct, punitive damages may be available. When compared to other states, though, Missouri law drastically limits when they can be awarded and how much can be received. What are Punitive Damages? Punitive damages, also known as exemplary damages, are a type of financial compensation that can be awarded in a personal injury case . They go ...
The foreseeable effects of “strictly construing” Missouri’s workers’ compensation laws continue to unfold. Just last week, the Supreme Court of Missouri ruled that employers could legally discriminate against former employees who filed for workers’ compensation or reported a workplace injury. The pertinent statutes were not crystal clear that such retaliation was unlawful, so the Supreme Court ...
Negligence per se is a way of proving fault in a personal injury claim . If someone was violating a law when they hurt you, like if they were breaking a traffic law and caused a car accident , that violation can be used to prove that they were being negligent. This can establish liability and make them pay for your losses. Unlawful Conduct Amounts to Per Se Negligence Every state has a long list ...
"The City of Springfield says it would pay $250,000 to the parents and attorneys of a man fatally shot by a police officer in February. If a judge approves the proposed settlement, the city and former officer Andrew Bath would not be held liable for the death of Michael Ireland. Attorneys for Ireland's family filed the proposed wrongful death lawsuit settlement in Greene County Circuit Court on ...
The foreseeable effects of “strictly construing” Missouri’s workers’ compensation laws continue to unfold. Just last week, the Supreme Court of Missouri ruled that employers could legally discriminate against former employees who filed for workers’ compensation or reported a workplace injury. The pertinent statutes were not crystal clear that such retaliation was unlawful, so the Supreme Court ...
In our last blog post on workers’ compensation law in Missouri, we looked at how it took an appeals court to say that injuries do not have to be instantaneous to be compensable through workers’ comp. An underlying issue in that case is how injuries can be subjective: Activities that hurt one person may not hurt someone else. While this may seem obvious, at least one member of the Labor and ...
A recent workers’ compensation case made it to a Missouri Court of Appeals after the employer claimed that the worker’s injury was not compensable because the accident did not immediately produce crippling symptoms. The case is a sign of how tilted the field of workers’ compensation law has become in Missouri. Worker Feels Symptoms Day After Accident The case is Harper v. Springfield Rehab & ...
The foreseeable effects of “strictly construing” Missouri’s workers’ compensation laws continue to unfold. Just last week, the Supreme Court of Missouri ruled that employers could legally discriminate against former employees who filed for workers’ compensation or reported a workplace injury. The pertinent statutes were not crystal clear that such retaliation was unlawful, so the Supreme Court ...
In our last blog post on workers’ compensation law in Missouri, we looked at how it took an appeals court to say that injuries do not have to be instantaneous to be compensable through workers’ comp. An underlying issue in that case is how injuries can be subjective: Activities that hurt one person may not hurt someone else. While this may seem obvious, at least one member of the Labor and ...
A recent workers’ compensation case made it to a Missouri Court of Appeals after the employer claimed that the worker’s injury was not compensable because the accident did not immediately produce crippling symptoms. The case is a sign of how tilted the field of workers’ compensation law has become in Missouri. Worker Feels Symptoms Day After Accident The case is Harper v. Springfield Rehab & ...
If you get hurt by someone else’s negligence, like in a car accident , you can file a personal injury lawsuit and recover financial compensation for your losses . In Missouri, most of that financial compensation is not taxable at the state or federal level. However, some of it is. The General Rule: Personal Injury Settlements or Awards are Not Taxed According to Section 61 of the Internal Revenue ...
A St. Joseph man pled guilty to driving while intoxicated (DWI) and causing a car accident that killed a local woman and her unborn child. The story raises a question that many accident victims ask: Can I recover compensation in a personal injury lawsuit from a drunk driver that hurt me? The answer is yes, sometimes. St. Joseph Man Pleads Guilty to DWI After Fatal Crash The fatal accident happened ...
New data about car accidents in the United States paints a bleak picture about roadway safety here compared to abroad: While the U.S. was once among the safest places to travel, it now has a higher rate of fatalities from road accidents than any other rich nation in the world. According to one analysis, America’s car-centric transportation policies are to blame, as the roadway deaths ...
